Adrienne Clarkson Breaks the Protocal for Governor Generals

To learn more about Canadian or Quebec politics, both McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal offer wonderful political science degrees, that you may want to look into.

Montreal's Concordia University has a wonderful women's studies program at the Simone do Beauvoir Institute

The duties of a governor general is to represent the ruling British Monarch in Canada. The governor general carries out administrative duties and also celebratory or festive activities. We will now look at the three female governor generals of Canada, two of which were from Montreal.

Adrienne Clarkson's Style of Attending National and International Events had come under questioning for her traveling expenses even though these expenses were approved by Parliament. She also came under questioning for her style of office. The Canadian monarchist group noted that she broke station protocol at the Juno Beach and D-Day landings celebrations. Clarkson attended as head of state for Canada, but the Queen also attended and was positioned in third place behind Adrienne Clarkson and her life partner Saul. The Queen was said to be furious over this slight. Government House issued a statement that it was an error on behalf of a junior official, but they never explained how an error like this could occur.

Clarkson broke protocol again at the ceremony for at the cenotaph, the empty tomb for soldiers whose remains are in left in foreign countries. She alone was to place the first wreath, instead she choose to do it with her life partner. This slight change in protocol took on such a big significance that it has not been done since.

Adrienne Clarkson was losing popularity in the eyes of the public. Clarkson had made a trip to Vancouver to visit a poor section of the city and was booed and hissed. Her presence was not wanted by the small group of objectors. They maintained that her visit was nothing more than a publicity stunt to give her an extended tenure in office.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Clarkson